Fic: A Lifetime and a Half
Title: A Lifetime and a Half
Author: thinlizzy2
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/characters: George Weasley/OMC, Fred Weasley, Molly Weasley
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine
Prompt: Either Fred and George, Padma and Parvati or Lorcan and Lysander, How do you tell the person who's most like you in all the world that you want to be a member of the opposite sex?
Summary: I'd say it's all in the prompt!
Warnings: Canon character death
Author's Notes: This isn't my usual fandom but the prompt just spoke to me, I spent a few years as a teenager living with my aunt (my father's twin) who's a trans woman. Big thanks to Auntie C and the lovely M for letting me use elements of their own lives here, as well as to T for the encouragement and R for the great beta work. And to B, just for being one of the bravest young men I've ever met.
Written for queer_fest.
The first time she knows she's different from other girls is when Mum lets her watch Ginny being changed. George is fascinated with her new sister; she was too little to really pay attention when Ron was born so Ginny is the first baby she's ever seen close up. The newest Weasley is intriguing, with her little suckling mouth, powdery milk smell and scrunched-up little fists waving around everywhere. George knows she'll be special to Ginny; after all, the baby has five brothers but only one sister. She can't wait until she's old enough for them to do stuff together.
She stands on a chair to watch Mum undo the soiled nappy. She admires the deft way she protects Ginny's delicate tummy skin from the pins. The dirty nappy smells bad and looks disgusting but George forces herself to watch. She wants to have babies some day when she's big and has a husband and a home of her own. So she needs to know how to do this.
The cleft between the baby's legs is a shock. There's something wrong with her baby sister; why did no one ever tell her? Can it be corrected? Panicked, she implores Mum for help. “Mummy, what happened to her willy?”
“She doesn't have one.” Mum's voice is muffled around the mouthful of pins. “She's a little girl. Boys have willies but girls don't.”
Years later, George will realize that this conversation had been planned; Mum must have become concerned about how often George played the princess in the children's games. Or maybe she had noticed George's baffled resentment over Ginny getting pretty new dresses while she had to make do with hand-me-downs from her brothers. Or possibly her mother's intuition had just kicked in. For whatever reason, Molly Weasley had decided to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
But there are no suspicions at the time, just shock.
“None of them?”
Fred finds her hours later, in the special corner of the cellar that only they go to. She has tear-tracks in the dirt coating her face and her shirt is filthy with dust and snot. Her favourite brother runs for a hankie and a chocolate frog from their secret stash. “What's wrong?”
George can barely get the words out through her sobbing. “Mum says I'm not a girl. She says I'm a boy!”
“Really?” Fred's nose wrinkles in confusion. “Why?”
George shrugs. She doesn't really understand everything Mum said about girl bits and boy bits and the different seeds that daddies plant in mummies to make different kinds of babies. She just knows that a bunch of really important stuff doesn't make sense any more. “I'm made wrong.”
Fred sits down, his whole face screwed up in consternation. “Can we fix you?”
George shakes her head. “Mum says no.”
Fred's little mouth sets with determination. “Mum doesn't know everything.”
George perks up a bit at that; she had been too upset to consider it, but that's true. Mum doesn't know everything; the number of successful midnight kitchen raids she and Fred have pulled off prove that. Sure, Mum had sounded like she knew what she was talking about, but really? George, a boy? Forever? It was so silly!
Fred takes George's hand. “When we're big, we'll fix it. I bet it'll be easy.” He pets his sister's hair. “Don't worry, Georgie. We'll make it all okay.”
*
George packs her trunk carefully. Near the bottom are her schoolbooks, the new ones still in the wrappers and the hand-me-downs from Bill, Charlie and Percy. Her new school robes and her Quidditch gear go on top of those, and over that are her dungbombs, trick wands, itching potions and other fun stuff. She doesn't really expect to get those into Hogwarts; her brothers have told her that Mr. Filch inspects everyone's trunks and takes all the contraband away. But she hopes that if he confiscates those he won't bother to look underneath everything else, where her real treasures are.
These include her tiny nubs of lipsticks and her compacts with all the blush gone save for the little crusts at the edges. She has these meticulously wrapped in clothes that Ginny has never worn and won't miss, gifts sent by well-meaning aunts with a tendency to overestimate the size of an eight year old girl. She knows she won't get to use these things at Hogwarts, not in a dorm shared by several boys. She'll have to keep them even more carefully hidden there than she does at home. But leaving them behind isn't an option. She needs to have them with her.
She hasn't told anyone, but she's actually pretty scared about going to Hogwarts. What if she and Fred end up in different houses and she's got to deal with all those boys all by herself? She's gotten pretty good at acting like a boy; she's had to, since just being herself led to more and more uncomfortable - and then downright angry - talks with Mum and Dad. But Fred covers for her a lot; half their growing reputations as pranksters comes from Fred laughing a little too heartily as he slaps her on the back and chortles that whatever she just said was a 'good one'. If they aren't going to be together then who'll show her how to act so no one figures it out? And what will happen to her if - when - someone guesses the truth?
Fred, of course, is excited beyond words to be going to Hogwarts, but the night before they leave he finally calms down enough to notice that his twin sister is a nervous wreck. When George confesses her worries, Fred sneaks away downstairs and returns with a two pint container of pumpkin juice and a stack of rich butter cookies nabbed from Mum's private hiding place that only they know about. The sweetness of the treats calm her down enough to listen to reason.
“Of course we're going to be in the same house,” Fred scoffs. “We'll be in Gryffindor just like everyone else. I mean, they took Percy; of course they'll take us. Though that really should be enough to put us off.”
George laughs. When Fred says it so confidently, it seems silly to have worried at all.
“And you know what?” Fred is warming to his own pep talk. “Maybe we're lucky. I mean, if you really were-“
He catches himself just in time, but George notices. This has been happening more and more lately.
“If you looked like a girl”, Fred corrects himself. “Then Dumbledore and the other teachers wouldn't let us stay together. But this way it's no problem.”
George takes another swig of pumpkin juice. It washes away the bitterness of what she knows Fred really meant to say. She needs comfort now, not an argument. “And you'll help me, when we get there? You'll help me find the magic to change?” That's the one thing that's made going to Hogwarts seem bearable; the school is the place where she might finally find a solution.
“Sure.” For some reason, Fred's not looking in her eyes but he squeezes her hand gently. “Everything will be okay once we get there, George. You'll see.”
**
She's always loved Quiddich. There's a real rush to flying, it's unlike any other sensation. The wind in her hair feels amazing and she loves the single-mindedness of being a Beater. Get up in the air, find your target and smack it as hard as you can, over and over again. It's a thrill.
Lately though, she finds new reasons to love it.
She's in second year, and her classmates are twelve and thirteen years old. All their bodies are changing; it's impossible not to notice. George's is no exception. But instead of the breasts and curvy hips she craves, she's got a voice that won't stop cracking and hair sprouting all over her face. She needs to shave now; the first time she did that she cried so much she couldn't see herself in the mirror and ended up with little cuts all over her face. To make it up to herself, she does her legs too, whenever she can be alone in the showers. It's small compensation, but it's something.
When people fly, however, they aren't male or female; they're little dots against a bright blue sky. The people watching from below can't discern her sex, and she likes to pretend that she changes when she's up there. After all, who can say with any real certainty that she doesn't?
Like most of their family, Fred is a Chudley Canons fan, despite their never-ending losing streak. George, though, she supports the Harpies. She's got a picture of Gwenog Jones up on the wall above her bed; she loves watching Gwenog swoop and soar, waving and blowing kisses as she flies in and out of the borders of the poster.
It's not a weird thing for a bloke to have; the boys she shares her room with don't think anything of it. As Lee Jordan often says, Gwenog is gorgeous. And she is, but it's not her long legs or winning smile that George admires. It goes much deeper than that.
Sometimes she repeats the Harpy captain's name in her head, like a mantra. It soothes her; it feels right somehow. She's even asked Fred to call her Gwenog when they're alone, but he never remembers. Still, she keeps it close to her heart. Maybe she can have it, later.
For now, she just hurries out to the pitch and kicks off the ground, soaring into the sky where she can be anyone she pleases.
***
The Weasley twins don't argue often but, whenever they do, it's a doozy. This argument is no exception.
“You're being an arsehole, you know that?” Fred's not shouting anymore, but his voice is clipped with anger. “An absolute arsehole.”
George lies back on the bed and covers her face with a pillow. She's sick to death of hearing about this. She'd like to leave, but the whole school is full of people getting ready for the Yule Ball so there's no escape at all.
“I never said you shouldn't go. I just said I won't. Why does this even matter?”
“Like I said before, it matters because I want to have fun tonight! Angie's agreed to go with me; all our friends will be there. And I'm going to have to worry about you, sitting all by yourself up here being a misery-guts! It's going to bring me down all night.”
It should be touching that Fred cares so much, but they've been having this same conversation for days and it's exhausting. George groans. “Well then, just don't worry about me. Go and enjoy the ball, enjoy your date, enjoy everything! I'll be fine!”
Fred finishes knotting his tie and turns back to his sister. “I don't get why you won't go. All right, so you don't have a date. But lots of people are going stag. What's the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is.” The very idea makes her sick. Getting all dressed up in boy's dress robes, tricking some poor girl into going with her by pretending she could ever want to be her boyfriend, trying to lead while they danced. She doesn't know why it feels so much worse than the performance she puts on every day, but it does. It would be like celebrating the lies she's so tired of, like validating them. “If I can't go as me, I don't want to go at all.”
Fred sucks air through his teeth. “That again? Fuck, George. I thought you'd given up on all that.”
A new wave of anger rises in George's belly, hotter and sharper than anything she's ever known before. “No, I didn't give it up. I can't give up who I am. You didn't want to talk about it anymore, so I don't. But nothing's changed.”
That's not quite true. What's changed is George and Fred's relationship. Ever since the day, nearly a year ago, that Fred had announced that they had pretty much exhausted the Hogwarts library, that changing sex was not only magically impossible but probably highly illegal due to a bunch of laws governing transfiguration, and that it really was time that George let go of this whole idea in the first place, things haven't been the same. They'd had a knock-down fight that time, shouting and pushing and even a few rare punches. They hadn't spoken for days. Eventually they'd formed an uneasy truce when Percy simply needed to have fire ants planted in his slippers; his crowing about his NEWTs had left them no other choice. However, George hasn't been able to really talk to Fred since then and that hurts.
It must be hurting Fred too, because he lowers his eyes and swallows hard. “So all this time…”
“Yeah.” There's a lump in George's throat that just won't go away.
“And you let me think…”
“I didn't know what you were thinking.”
Fred sits on the bed and wraps his arms around George. The embrace, after a year of distance, feels like coming home again. “This isn't going away, is it Georgie?”
She shakes her head against her brother's neck. “Not a chance.”
Fred sighs and tightens the hug. “Then we'll just have to find a way.”
****
Morgan Wright is absolutely amazing. He works at Flourish and Blotts - their new neighbours in their Diagon Alley premises - but he's nothing like the dusty bookshop clerk George had taken him for when she was still at Hogwarts and buying her books from him. He's clever and funny and ridiculously tall. He has beautiful brown eyes that crinkle up when he smiles and hands that feel so incredibly good on George's skin that it's like they were made to be there.
Maybe even more importantly, Morgan - Muggle-born with parents who opted to educate him in their own world - actually gets it.
He introduces George to a whole new vocabulary, words that resonate in her mouth like enchantments. Queer: the word has connotations that she never realized before. Pansexual: that's how Morgan describes himself. Transsexual: that's George, and there are others like her. There are millions of people just like her, people born in bodies that don't match their souls. And there are things that they can do about it.
She likes the sound of it. Trans. Transfiguration, turning from one thing into another. Transportation, getting where she needs to be. Transition, soon.
But Fred's hung up on different words.
“Hormone therapy,” Fred reads aloud from the stack of book Morgan brought them. “Breast augmentation. Vaginoplasty.” He winces and turns the page. “Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but doesn't this all hurt a lot?”
George nods. Morgan has explained everything to her. She knows she'll be put to sleep during the most invasive procedures and that there are medicines she can take to help her deal with the pain; still, it will hurt a great deal. It doesn't matter though. She needs this, by any means necessary. “I can take it.”
“My dad can do a lot of the cosmetic work,” Morgan chimes in. George has met Dr. Wright several times before; she knows now that a plastic surgeon isn't someone who operates on plastics. Rather, he's a highly skilled doctor and George trusts him. It'll be a relief to have someone like him doing some of the procedures.
Morgan goes on. “He can take care of the facial feminization, the breasts, some other things. As for the rest, we'll need to get George some Muggle ID for the NHS and there are some things that'll we'll have to pay for, but it's possible.” He rubs the back of George's neck and she relaxes into the comfort that's so quickly becoming familiar. “It's not like a spell though; it takes a long time. It would be best to start as soon as you can.”
George shakes her head; she's considered this. “We need to wait. There's a war coming, and I need to fight. I can't be in a hospital somewhere when Voldemort decides to make his move. After, though. Right after everything's settled. I don't want to waste any more time than I have to.”
She can tell Fred's reached a page with a photo on it by the way her brother suddenly turns green. He snaps the book shut. “How's this? It's just an idea I'm putting on the table, okay? Why don't we just brew up some Polyjuice Potion, find a bird you like the look of and follow her around a bit until she gets a haircut? We'll make enough potion so you never have to worry about switching back."
George refuses. She'd once thought about that, before she knew there was another way, but now she knows better. “I don't want someone else's body. I just want mine to be right.”
Fred nods and opens the book again. After a minute, he grimaces, crosses his legs and points accusingly at Morgan. “Your dad better be one damn good healer.”
Morgan rolls his eyes. “He's an excellent doctor.”
“Glad to hear it. Because if you think I'm letting just anyone cut up my sister, you'd better wise up fast.”
As her brother and her boyfriend descend into their usual bickering, George smiles and reaches for another book. Looking at the “after” pictures is quickly becoming her new favourite hobby.
*****
It's not enough that George has lost Fred, the one person who's been there for her - who's really known her - for her whole life. Now she has to deal with all the crap that goes along with death. Even though all she wants to do is just curl up and mourn properly for the man who was her twin and her best friend, she knows that she's the only one who can arrange things the way Fred would have wanted them. And she owes him that.
So she vetoes the simple dress robes that Molly originally picked out for the burial, giving her mother the choice of Fred's favourite dragon-hide suit or the bright magenta shop uniform that they designed together instead. She picks the charity that donations should go to - the obscure independent wireless network that kept Potterwatch on the air all those months. She tries to find a way to get I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good on a tombstone, but it just won't fit unless the carving is so small as to make it unreadable. She's grateful when Harry suggests Mischief Managed instead.
The obituary is the hardest part. Everything the family offers up is true; Fred was brave and strong and kind. He will be sorely missed; there's no doubt about that. But aside from one sentence citing his “wonderful sense of humour”, there's nothing in there about what made Fred special. George stays up all night, making little insertions about his penchant for pulling pranks and his genius as an inventor, until the document describes the person it's meant to be about. There's only one more alteration to make and she wants to wait until her mother wakes up to take care of it.
“The part where it says that he's survived by five brothers and a sister,” she says, as Molly sips her coffee and Morgan squeezes her hand under the table. “It needs to be four brothers and two sisters.”
Her mother's face moves through surprise, anger and resignation at an impressive speed. When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet but steady. “I really thought we were done with that.”
George shakes her head. “No, Mum. Never.”
“And it's not one of your jokes? I sometimes thought that maybe…”
“It's not a joke. It isn't funny.” She wants to reach out, wants to hug her mother, but she has no idea what's right here. It's bizarre that after losing an ear, joining a rebellion and fighting Death Eaters, she can still be this scared sitting at her old kitchen table and taking to her mum. Helplessly, she clutches the corrected obituary in her fist. “We can't pay tribute to him with a lie.”
Slowly, Molly nods. “No. No, I suppose we can't.” She takes the parchment from George, reads it through and then, with trembling fingers, makes the alteration. She ties it to Pigwidgeon's leg and stands at the window, watching him fly away for a long time. When she finally turns around, her eyes are glistening but her mouth is set in a small smile.
She raises her eyebrows at Morgan. “I take it you're involved with this?”
Morgan nods. “Mrs. Weasley, I love your daughter very much.”
The smile grows a tiny fraction even as her eyes finally spill over. “Good. So do I.”
******
Gwenog strides along the path, her heels clicking on the flagstones. It's been a while since she's been here, but she knows just where to go. She could find Fred's grave in her sleep if she wanted to.
It's a chilly day; she draws her coat around herself more securely. She's been living in Australia for six years and it's surprisingly easy to forget how cold and damp an English winter can be.
The grave is well-tended; she's glad to see that. There are bunches of fresh flowers lying around the base; she adds her own roses to those. There's a snapshot too: Bill, Fleur and the kids waving at the camera. She smiles at the happy faces; she'll go and see her new nephew after she's done here.
“Hey, Fred.” She traces the engraving on the stone. “Sorry it's been ages. If it matters, I think about you all the time. I guess you know that though. I'm going to believe you know that.”
She digs around in her handbag. “I brought you some stuff.” She opens up the brochure from the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Melbourne branch. “This is our sixth location. Pretty cool, huh? And you'll never guess who's managing the London branch now. Percy. He finally got fed up with the Ministry, though to be fair he lasted about a zillion times longer than either of us would have.” She laughs. “Don't worry; he's actually doing a surprisingly good job.”
“And then there's this. Ignore the photo; it's a disaster.” She holds up the copy of her Apparition license. “See the 'F'? You don't even want to imagine all the paperwork that goes into getting that.” She folds it up and places it on the stone, putting a pebble on top to keep it from blowing away. “You can keep that one; it's just a copy.” She chuckles softly. “I had to stop myself from sending them to everyone I've ever met, but I figured you'd definitely want one.”
She glances at the sky; it's definitely going to rain at some point, but it seems to be holding off for now. She can take a while longer.
“I'm all done with surgeries, by the way. I had the bottom done last year; it was the last thing. I think I was still debating last time we talked. Don't worry; I didn't bring you a picture of that.” She brushes a dry leaf from the stone. “It was a harder decision than I thought it was going to be. Okay, don't laugh, but I'm running this youth group now. I know, I know. Won't somebody think of the children and all that. It's nothing formal, just a place for trans magical kids to go and hang out and talk. And I, you know, I didn't want them to think that what's between someone's legs is all that important. But in the end, for me it was. I've worked out that it's okay to do what's right for me. The rest of the world will survive. Plus, well, I live by the beach. It's nice to be able to wear a swimsuit.”
She bites her lower lip and blinks back tears. “I miss you, Fred. I miss you every single day. You know, for the longest time I thought about not having any surgeries at all. Your face was my face, and it was all I had left of you. But I was wrong about that.” She presses her hand over her chest. “You're in here, always. I take you with me everywhere I go. What's on the outside doesn't matter at all.”
It takes her a minute to realize that the moisture on her cheeks isn't just tears. The rain has started and she doesn't have an umbrella. She needs get back or she'll catch a cold. So with a whispered goodbye and a quick press of lips to the headstone, she turns to go.
Morgan meets her at the gate and folds her into a silent hug. They stand there for a long moment until she pulls back, wincing as she sees the mascara stain on his white shirt. She rubs at her eyes, more dark smears come off on her hand.
“Am I an utter mess?” Gwenog asks, searching in her handbag for a mirror.
Her husband dabs at her face with a tissue and smiles gently. “No more than anyone else.”
Author: thinlizzy2
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing/characters: George Weasley/OMC, Fred Weasley, Molly Weasley
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine
Prompt: Either Fred and George, Padma and Parvati or Lorcan and Lysander, How do you tell the person who's most like you in all the world that you want to be a member of the opposite sex?
Summary: I'd say it's all in the prompt!
Warnings: Canon character death
Author's Notes: This isn't my usual fandom but the prompt just spoke to me, I spent a few years as a teenager living with my aunt (my father's twin) who's a trans woman. Big thanks to Auntie C and the lovely M for letting me use elements of their own lives here, as well as to T for the encouragement and R for the great beta work. And to B, just for being one of the bravest young men I've ever met.
Written for queer_fest.
The first time she knows she's different from other girls is when Mum lets her watch Ginny being changed. George is fascinated with her new sister; she was too little to really pay attention when Ron was born so Ginny is the first baby she's ever seen close up. The newest Weasley is intriguing, with her little suckling mouth, powdery milk smell and scrunched-up little fists waving around everywhere. George knows she'll be special to Ginny; after all, the baby has five brothers but only one sister. She can't wait until she's old enough for them to do stuff together.
She stands on a chair to watch Mum undo the soiled nappy. She admires the deft way she protects Ginny's delicate tummy skin from the pins. The dirty nappy smells bad and looks disgusting but George forces herself to watch. She wants to have babies some day when she's big and has a husband and a home of her own. So she needs to know how to do this.
The cleft between the baby's legs is a shock. There's something wrong with her baby sister; why did no one ever tell her? Can it be corrected? Panicked, she implores Mum for help. “Mummy, what happened to her willy?”
“She doesn't have one.” Mum's voice is muffled around the mouthful of pins. “She's a little girl. Boys have willies but girls don't.”
Years later, George will realize that this conversation had been planned; Mum must have become concerned about how often George played the princess in the children's games. Or maybe she had noticed George's baffled resentment over Ginny getting pretty new dresses while she had to make do with hand-me-downs from her brothers. Or possibly her mother's intuition had just kicked in. For whatever reason, Molly Weasley had decided to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
But there are no suspicions at the time, just shock.
“None of them?”
Fred finds her hours later, in the special corner of the cellar that only they go to. She has tear-tracks in the dirt coating her face and her shirt is filthy with dust and snot. Her favourite brother runs for a hankie and a chocolate frog from their secret stash. “What's wrong?”
George can barely get the words out through her sobbing. “Mum says I'm not a girl. She says I'm a boy!”
“Really?” Fred's nose wrinkles in confusion. “Why?”
George shrugs. She doesn't really understand everything Mum said about girl bits and boy bits and the different seeds that daddies plant in mummies to make different kinds of babies. She just knows that a bunch of really important stuff doesn't make sense any more. “I'm made wrong.”
Fred sits down, his whole face screwed up in consternation. “Can we fix you?”
George shakes her head. “Mum says no.”
Fred's little mouth sets with determination. “Mum doesn't know everything.”
George perks up a bit at that; she had been too upset to consider it, but that's true. Mum doesn't know everything; the number of successful midnight kitchen raids she and Fred have pulled off prove that. Sure, Mum had sounded like she knew what she was talking about, but really? George, a boy? Forever? It was so silly!
Fred takes George's hand. “When we're big, we'll fix it. I bet it'll be easy.” He pets his sister's hair. “Don't worry, Georgie. We'll make it all okay.”
*
George packs her trunk carefully. Near the bottom are her schoolbooks, the new ones still in the wrappers and the hand-me-downs from Bill, Charlie and Percy. Her new school robes and her Quidditch gear go on top of those, and over that are her dungbombs, trick wands, itching potions and other fun stuff. She doesn't really expect to get those into Hogwarts; her brothers have told her that Mr. Filch inspects everyone's trunks and takes all the contraband away. But she hopes that if he confiscates those he won't bother to look underneath everything else, where her real treasures are.
These include her tiny nubs of lipsticks and her compacts with all the blush gone save for the little crusts at the edges. She has these meticulously wrapped in clothes that Ginny has never worn and won't miss, gifts sent by well-meaning aunts with a tendency to overestimate the size of an eight year old girl. She knows she won't get to use these things at Hogwarts, not in a dorm shared by several boys. She'll have to keep them even more carefully hidden there than she does at home. But leaving them behind isn't an option. She needs to have them with her.
She hasn't told anyone, but she's actually pretty scared about going to Hogwarts. What if she and Fred end up in different houses and she's got to deal with all those boys all by herself? She's gotten pretty good at acting like a boy; she's had to, since just being herself led to more and more uncomfortable - and then downright angry - talks with Mum and Dad. But Fred covers for her a lot; half their growing reputations as pranksters comes from Fred laughing a little too heartily as he slaps her on the back and chortles that whatever she just said was a 'good one'. If they aren't going to be together then who'll show her how to act so no one figures it out? And what will happen to her if - when - someone guesses the truth?
Fred, of course, is excited beyond words to be going to Hogwarts, but the night before they leave he finally calms down enough to notice that his twin sister is a nervous wreck. When George confesses her worries, Fred sneaks away downstairs and returns with a two pint container of pumpkin juice and a stack of rich butter cookies nabbed from Mum's private hiding place that only they know about. The sweetness of the treats calm her down enough to listen to reason.
“Of course we're going to be in the same house,” Fred scoffs. “We'll be in Gryffindor just like everyone else. I mean, they took Percy; of course they'll take us. Though that really should be enough to put us off.”
George laughs. When Fred says it so confidently, it seems silly to have worried at all.
“And you know what?” Fred is warming to his own pep talk. “Maybe we're lucky. I mean, if you really were-“
He catches himself just in time, but George notices. This has been happening more and more lately.
“If you looked like a girl”, Fred corrects himself. “Then Dumbledore and the other teachers wouldn't let us stay together. But this way it's no problem.”
George takes another swig of pumpkin juice. It washes away the bitterness of what she knows Fred really meant to say. She needs comfort now, not an argument. “And you'll help me, when we get there? You'll help me find the magic to change?” That's the one thing that's made going to Hogwarts seem bearable; the school is the place where she might finally find a solution.
“Sure.” For some reason, Fred's not looking in her eyes but he squeezes her hand gently. “Everything will be okay once we get there, George. You'll see.”
**
She's always loved Quiddich. There's a real rush to flying, it's unlike any other sensation. The wind in her hair feels amazing and she loves the single-mindedness of being a Beater. Get up in the air, find your target and smack it as hard as you can, over and over again. It's a thrill.
Lately though, she finds new reasons to love it.
She's in second year, and her classmates are twelve and thirteen years old. All their bodies are changing; it's impossible not to notice. George's is no exception. But instead of the breasts and curvy hips she craves, she's got a voice that won't stop cracking and hair sprouting all over her face. She needs to shave now; the first time she did that she cried so much she couldn't see herself in the mirror and ended up with little cuts all over her face. To make it up to herself, she does her legs too, whenever she can be alone in the showers. It's small compensation, but it's something.
When people fly, however, they aren't male or female; they're little dots against a bright blue sky. The people watching from below can't discern her sex, and she likes to pretend that she changes when she's up there. After all, who can say with any real certainty that she doesn't?
Like most of their family, Fred is a Chudley Canons fan, despite their never-ending losing streak. George, though, she supports the Harpies. She's got a picture of Gwenog Jones up on the wall above her bed; she loves watching Gwenog swoop and soar, waving and blowing kisses as she flies in and out of the borders of the poster.
It's not a weird thing for a bloke to have; the boys she shares her room with don't think anything of it. As Lee Jordan often says, Gwenog is gorgeous. And she is, but it's not her long legs or winning smile that George admires. It goes much deeper than that.
Sometimes she repeats the Harpy captain's name in her head, like a mantra. It soothes her; it feels right somehow. She's even asked Fred to call her Gwenog when they're alone, but he never remembers. Still, she keeps it close to her heart. Maybe she can have it, later.
For now, she just hurries out to the pitch and kicks off the ground, soaring into the sky where she can be anyone she pleases.
***
The Weasley twins don't argue often but, whenever they do, it's a doozy. This argument is no exception.
“You're being an arsehole, you know that?” Fred's not shouting anymore, but his voice is clipped with anger. “An absolute arsehole.”
George lies back on the bed and covers her face with a pillow. She's sick to death of hearing about this. She'd like to leave, but the whole school is full of people getting ready for the Yule Ball so there's no escape at all.
“I never said you shouldn't go. I just said I won't. Why does this even matter?”
“Like I said before, it matters because I want to have fun tonight! Angie's agreed to go with me; all our friends will be there. And I'm going to have to worry about you, sitting all by yourself up here being a misery-guts! It's going to bring me down all night.”
It should be touching that Fred cares so much, but they've been having this same conversation for days and it's exhausting. George groans. “Well then, just don't worry about me. Go and enjoy the ball, enjoy your date, enjoy everything! I'll be fine!”
Fred finishes knotting his tie and turns back to his sister. “I don't get why you won't go. All right, so you don't have a date. But lots of people are going stag. What's the big deal?”
“You know what the big deal is.” The very idea makes her sick. Getting all dressed up in boy's dress robes, tricking some poor girl into going with her by pretending she could ever want to be her boyfriend, trying to lead while they danced. She doesn't know why it feels so much worse than the performance she puts on every day, but it does. It would be like celebrating the lies she's so tired of, like validating them. “If I can't go as me, I don't want to go at all.”
Fred sucks air through his teeth. “That again? Fuck, George. I thought you'd given up on all that.”
A new wave of anger rises in George's belly, hotter and sharper than anything she's ever known before. “No, I didn't give it up. I can't give up who I am. You didn't want to talk about it anymore, so I don't. But nothing's changed.”
That's not quite true. What's changed is George and Fred's relationship. Ever since the day, nearly a year ago, that Fred had announced that they had pretty much exhausted the Hogwarts library, that changing sex was not only magically impossible but probably highly illegal due to a bunch of laws governing transfiguration, and that it really was time that George let go of this whole idea in the first place, things haven't been the same. They'd had a knock-down fight that time, shouting and pushing and even a few rare punches. They hadn't spoken for days. Eventually they'd formed an uneasy truce when Percy simply needed to have fire ants planted in his slippers; his crowing about his NEWTs had left them no other choice. However, George hasn't been able to really talk to Fred since then and that hurts.
It must be hurting Fred too, because he lowers his eyes and swallows hard. “So all this time…”
“Yeah.” There's a lump in George's throat that just won't go away.
“And you let me think…”
“I didn't know what you were thinking.”
Fred sits on the bed and wraps his arms around George. The embrace, after a year of distance, feels like coming home again. “This isn't going away, is it Georgie?”
She shakes her head against her brother's neck. “Not a chance.”
Fred sighs and tightens the hug. “Then we'll just have to find a way.”
****
Morgan Wright is absolutely amazing. He works at Flourish and Blotts - their new neighbours in their Diagon Alley premises - but he's nothing like the dusty bookshop clerk George had taken him for when she was still at Hogwarts and buying her books from him. He's clever and funny and ridiculously tall. He has beautiful brown eyes that crinkle up when he smiles and hands that feel so incredibly good on George's skin that it's like they were made to be there.
Maybe even more importantly, Morgan - Muggle-born with parents who opted to educate him in their own world - actually gets it.
He introduces George to a whole new vocabulary, words that resonate in her mouth like enchantments. Queer: the word has connotations that she never realized before. Pansexual: that's how Morgan describes himself. Transsexual: that's George, and there are others like her. There are millions of people just like her, people born in bodies that don't match their souls. And there are things that they can do about it.
She likes the sound of it. Trans. Transfiguration, turning from one thing into another. Transportation, getting where she needs to be. Transition, soon.
But Fred's hung up on different words.
“Hormone therapy,” Fred reads aloud from the stack of book Morgan brought them. “Breast augmentation. Vaginoplasty.” He winces and turns the page. “Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but doesn't this all hurt a lot?”
George nods. Morgan has explained everything to her. She knows she'll be put to sleep during the most invasive procedures and that there are medicines she can take to help her deal with the pain; still, it will hurt a great deal. It doesn't matter though. She needs this, by any means necessary. “I can take it.”
“My dad can do a lot of the cosmetic work,” Morgan chimes in. George has met Dr. Wright several times before; she knows now that a plastic surgeon isn't someone who operates on plastics. Rather, he's a highly skilled doctor and George trusts him. It'll be a relief to have someone like him doing some of the procedures.
Morgan goes on. “He can take care of the facial feminization, the breasts, some other things. As for the rest, we'll need to get George some Muggle ID for the NHS and there are some things that'll we'll have to pay for, but it's possible.” He rubs the back of George's neck and she relaxes into the comfort that's so quickly becoming familiar. “It's not like a spell though; it takes a long time. It would be best to start as soon as you can.”
George shakes her head; she's considered this. “We need to wait. There's a war coming, and I need to fight. I can't be in a hospital somewhere when Voldemort decides to make his move. After, though. Right after everything's settled. I don't want to waste any more time than I have to.”
She can tell Fred's reached a page with a photo on it by the way her brother suddenly turns green. He snaps the book shut. “How's this? It's just an idea I'm putting on the table, okay? Why don't we just brew up some Polyjuice Potion, find a bird you like the look of and follow her around a bit until she gets a haircut? We'll make enough potion so you never have to worry about switching back."
George refuses. She'd once thought about that, before she knew there was another way, but now she knows better. “I don't want someone else's body. I just want mine to be right.”
Fred nods and opens the book again. After a minute, he grimaces, crosses his legs and points accusingly at Morgan. “Your dad better be one damn good healer.”
Morgan rolls his eyes. “He's an excellent doctor.”
“Glad to hear it. Because if you think I'm letting just anyone cut up my sister, you'd better wise up fast.”
As her brother and her boyfriend descend into their usual bickering, George smiles and reaches for another book. Looking at the “after” pictures is quickly becoming her new favourite hobby.
*****
It's not enough that George has lost Fred, the one person who's been there for her - who's really known her - for her whole life. Now she has to deal with all the crap that goes along with death. Even though all she wants to do is just curl up and mourn properly for the man who was her twin and her best friend, she knows that she's the only one who can arrange things the way Fred would have wanted them. And she owes him that.
So she vetoes the simple dress robes that Molly originally picked out for the burial, giving her mother the choice of Fred's favourite dragon-hide suit or the bright magenta shop uniform that they designed together instead. She picks the charity that donations should go to - the obscure independent wireless network that kept Potterwatch on the air all those months. She tries to find a way to get I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good on a tombstone, but it just won't fit unless the carving is so small as to make it unreadable. She's grateful when Harry suggests Mischief Managed instead.
The obituary is the hardest part. Everything the family offers up is true; Fred was brave and strong and kind. He will be sorely missed; there's no doubt about that. But aside from one sentence citing his “wonderful sense of humour”, there's nothing in there about what made Fred special. George stays up all night, making little insertions about his penchant for pulling pranks and his genius as an inventor, until the document describes the person it's meant to be about. There's only one more alteration to make and she wants to wait until her mother wakes up to take care of it.
“The part where it says that he's survived by five brothers and a sister,” she says, as Molly sips her coffee and Morgan squeezes her hand under the table. “It needs to be four brothers and two sisters.”
Her mother's face moves through surprise, anger and resignation at an impressive speed. When she finally speaks, her voice is quiet but steady. “I really thought we were done with that.”
George shakes her head. “No, Mum. Never.”
“And it's not one of your jokes? I sometimes thought that maybe…”
“It's not a joke. It isn't funny.” She wants to reach out, wants to hug her mother, but she has no idea what's right here. It's bizarre that after losing an ear, joining a rebellion and fighting Death Eaters, she can still be this scared sitting at her old kitchen table and taking to her mum. Helplessly, she clutches the corrected obituary in her fist. “We can't pay tribute to him with a lie.”
Slowly, Molly nods. “No. No, I suppose we can't.” She takes the parchment from George, reads it through and then, with trembling fingers, makes the alteration. She ties it to Pigwidgeon's leg and stands at the window, watching him fly away for a long time. When she finally turns around, her eyes are glistening but her mouth is set in a small smile.
She raises her eyebrows at Morgan. “I take it you're involved with this?”
Morgan nods. “Mrs. Weasley, I love your daughter very much.”
The smile grows a tiny fraction even as her eyes finally spill over. “Good. So do I.”
******
Gwenog strides along the path, her heels clicking on the flagstones. It's been a while since she's been here, but she knows just where to go. She could find Fred's grave in her sleep if she wanted to.
It's a chilly day; she draws her coat around herself more securely. She's been living in Australia for six years and it's surprisingly easy to forget how cold and damp an English winter can be.
The grave is well-tended; she's glad to see that. There are bunches of fresh flowers lying around the base; she adds her own roses to those. There's a snapshot too: Bill, Fleur and the kids waving at the camera. She smiles at the happy faces; she'll go and see her new nephew after she's done here.
“Hey, Fred.” She traces the engraving on the stone. “Sorry it's been ages. If it matters, I think about you all the time. I guess you know that though. I'm going to believe you know that.”
She digs around in her handbag. “I brought you some stuff.” She opens up the brochure from the Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Melbourne branch. “This is our sixth location. Pretty cool, huh? And you'll never guess who's managing the London branch now. Percy. He finally got fed up with the Ministry, though to be fair he lasted about a zillion times longer than either of us would have.” She laughs. “Don't worry; he's actually doing a surprisingly good job.”
“And then there's this. Ignore the photo; it's a disaster.” She holds up the copy of her Apparition license. “See the 'F'? You don't even want to imagine all the paperwork that goes into getting that.” She folds it up and places it on the stone, putting a pebble on top to keep it from blowing away. “You can keep that one; it's just a copy.” She chuckles softly. “I had to stop myself from sending them to everyone I've ever met, but I figured you'd definitely want one.”
She glances at the sky; it's definitely going to rain at some point, but it seems to be holding off for now. She can take a while longer.
“I'm all done with surgeries, by the way. I had the bottom done last year; it was the last thing. I think I was still debating last time we talked. Don't worry; I didn't bring you a picture of that.” She brushes a dry leaf from the stone. “It was a harder decision than I thought it was going to be. Okay, don't laugh, but I'm running this youth group now. I know, I know. Won't somebody think of the children and all that. It's nothing formal, just a place for trans magical kids to go and hang out and talk. And I, you know, I didn't want them to think that what's between someone's legs is all that important. But in the end, for me it was. I've worked out that it's okay to do what's right for me. The rest of the world will survive. Plus, well, I live by the beach. It's nice to be able to wear a swimsuit.”
She bites her lower lip and blinks back tears. “I miss you, Fred. I miss you every single day. You know, for the longest time I thought about not having any surgeries at all. Your face was my face, and it was all I had left of you. But I was wrong about that.” She presses her hand over her chest. “You're in here, always. I take you with me everywhere I go. What's on the outside doesn't matter at all.”
It takes her a minute to realize that the moisture on her cheeks isn't just tears. The rain has started and she doesn't have an umbrella. She needs get back or she'll catch a cold. So with a whispered goodbye and a quick press of lips to the headstone, she turns to go.
Morgan meets her at the gate and folds her into a silent hug. They stand there for a long moment until she pulls back, wincing as she sees the mascara stain on his white shirt. She rubs at her eyes, more dark smears come off on her hand.
“Am I an utter mess?” Gwenog asks, searching in her handbag for a mirror.
Her husband dabs at her face with a tissue and smiles gently. “No more than anyone else.”